The Dale Jr. Download - 415 - Recapping the Daytona 500 with Steve Letarte

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is joined by his fellow NBC commentator and host of Dirty Mo Dough, Steve Letarte this week for episode 415 of the Dale Jr. Download. The guys have a lot to unpack from the Daytona 500 weekend, and topics of discussion include: Stenhouse’s big victory (3:19) Stock car racing is growing in the right direction (31:18) Race broadcast frustrations (9:28) JR Motorsports’ Daytona Recap (40:00) Previewing Fontana (49:52) When the Download crew plugged into Youtube Live for Ask Jr, listeners sent in questions regarding: (56:13) Driver-to-driver radio communication during races The new driver-eye cameras Dale running the All-Star race at North Wilkesboro Jimmie Johnson and Travis Pastrana’s Daytona runs The prospect of hosting Saturday Night Live Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I have a Speedweek's pet peeve. What is it? I was down there for the Dools, watching them. Scanning a bunch of cars. And a bunch of cars with young drivers, I heard, man, just stay in line. We want to take care of our equipment. We just, hey, let's not wreck this car. It's our car for Sunday.

And I was dang near boiling up there. This is the only mulligan you get in your racing career. Pearson now has the lead, Teddy Tris. As they come out of the force. He's coming. He's coming. Up to second. Hamlet of the 7. Up high.

Not the inside. Mark Church Union, three wide. Mark Martin is driving the fighting. That's better. Holding people off in Daytona. It's good thing the Daytona 5th. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download.

This is episode 415. We got a little special treat for everybody today. Unfortunately, Mike is not feeling too well. Decided, instead of coming in here and giving all us the crud, he was going to stay home we appreciate that mike let's take one for the team and um so we you know called up some friends see if uh somebody wanted to come in here and have a good time today and lucky enough for us steve letart is going to join us for dirty air uh steve welcome to the bo jungle studio man thanks for coming listen i appreciate it i really want to know you take mike out of the out of the state

of north carolina you get sick like what like what happens to mike he's kind of like a he's like that little kid that gets out of preschool and now he has the flu yeah well i don't know you know we uh I'll say that with a two-year-old or four-year-old in the house, I don't think that we have been 100% healthy for some time now. You're not going to be running nose-free for the next nine years, man. Let me go ahead and tell you. Mine are 19 and 17. You get at least until the first one has a driver's license

it's the first time you don't have runny noses in the house. Seriously. Oh, yeah, it's a decade-long thing. It's crazy. Good luck. Yep. I mean, I get excited about our girls going and being around other people than just us because we kind of spend a ton of time with them,

and I think they get tired of it. But every time they go, hey, man, they're going to go to this birthday party. For sure. At first I was like, awesome. Man, it would be cool to see them engage with other kids and so forth. Now I think, all right, they're bringing something home. Oh, yeah, for sure. Do we have all the medicine?

We have everything we need because I'm going to be sick. We just got over the last one, time to get another one in here, another bug in the house. Anyways, we're hoping Mike feels better, and is back next week. So let's get right into it, man, Daytona, Daytona 500. A lot to talk about it with that particular race. Ricky Stenhouse wins. No real massive surprise. Not sort of, you know, he's won two races in his career.

Daytona, Talladega. Right, right. Pretty good restrict plate racer. Yeah, so not a surprise that he won, but it had been a few years, right? He had been in the teens. Yeah, so what I tell you, what I saw out of Ricky that I was most impressed with is I saw a little bit of patience and deference over. the course of 500 miles. Like there were some times that I think the 2019 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

would have stuffed it in three wide and perhaps caused a wreck. I actually saw a little bit of patience through the course of the day. And I think you and I agree that if Ricky gets, much like he did last year, to have a chance in the 500, you know, he's really good in the closing laps. It's just he has a hard time getting there. Yeah, that's true. He has a hard time getting there. I will say, before we even get into the race, though, I saw you down at Daytona.

for the listeners, the 500 is back. And what I mean by that, as I was a little lazy making some reservations, I didn't know if I was going to go, you can't get a hotel, you can't get dinner reservations, traffic is a nightmare, and those are all a bonus for NASCAR, right? Like it was sold out and it was packed. It felt like back when you and I were racing it in the teens, right? It was a major event.

How did that happen? I don't know, but it was hard work. Listen, good racing. Sports stars are making it fun. I'm a big believer. We talk about all the stuff around. it, it's real simple. Are you entertained or are you not?

What are you watching? And I think that they make a good time. Like the flyover is reason enough to go. People think I'm kidding. The flyover is reason enough to go to the detain. It's unbelievable. They practiced it every day for like four days straight. Saturday they shook my ears.

I mean, forget the big five guy, you know, five at a time. And I know you were down there on Saturday. How about the guy that came on the deck? He was a few hundred feet above us and running mock something. Like he gave by in a hurry. That's like the ultimate flex. I'm going to shake everybody's teeth down here. Watch this.

Yeah, I was surprised, too, when I was there, the infield was full from one end to the other. It's been a long time when you're driving out that tunnel and turn four. Look over to the right towards turn four and turn three. Kind of thin, not entirely full, but over this past weekend, it was full. It reminded me a lot, like you say, of the years past 2004, 2006, when we were really at our peak. and when I was watching the race on TV, I took notice of the grandstands being full to the very tippy top. Yeah, bottom to top.

It was unbelievable. And so, yeah, I, you know, I'm glad that the sport's swinging in the right direction. And I don't live or die on every single race. We're going to have races that guys just run away from you. Yeah. And I, you know, look at it from a big, big 40,000 foot point of view. Looks like things are going in the right direction. I mean, you got to give Phelps and NASCAR and all the TV partners and everybody that's responsible with a little bit of credit here.

Yeah, and the facility. I mean, that too, that too. I got to go over. It's great. So I got to go over to do a couple sweet appearances Sunday morning. And it just reminded me as you walk through the stands. We go to a lot of different racetracks, right? If this is the Taj Mahal, as it should be, right, NASCAR's offices are across the street.

Like, this is supposed to be the one. It feels like the one. Right. The suites are great. The stands are great. The track experience out front. I saw the NASCAR experience. You know, there was a lot of buzz well before the green flag. Like two days before the race, I did an appearance across the street. We went into some restaurant and did a Q&A for about 15, 30 minutes. It was full of people, excited to be there. I was probably one in a long line of many that came through that day to talk to those folks. You weren't doing that two, three years ago. Nobody would have showed up. Right.

There weren't enough people. You'd have left there mad. You'd have told your people like, we're not going back to do that again. I'm not going to go to this restaurant. Like, I want my time to reach as many fans as possible. There was zero demand for that type of an experience a year ago, two years ago. And like you say, I mean, when we're doing those type of things, that's when you know that when you're going sort of outside the race itself and there's a big impact for the weekend

and you're doing certain things throughout town in the race market. That reminds me of the old days when things were really hitting off. Well, then the best part is we talk about all the off-track stuff, and then I think from green flag to checkered flag, I received what I think is a signature Daytona 500, which is it reminds me of the Dale and Dale show when it was your dad and Dale Jarrett or the stewards and Gordon shows. And what I mean by that, there was this buzz of Chase Elliott,

this buzz of Ryan Blaney, this buzz of Denny Hamlin, but you had to survive 500 miles. Like what makes that race great? Like, look, I don't need 500 miles races every week. But that race should never be a mile short of 500 because part of it is to somehow control your ego and anxiety for 500 miles to keep cycling. Every green flag pit cycle changed the kind of guys controlling the race. There was just so many good storylines through the race. And then I don't think any of us were shocked that it ended with. a little bit of a sprint to the finish.

Although I will tell you, I know the fans love the sprints. I was on the edge of my seat. I didn't need that Daniel Swarra's Yellow. No. I was on the edge of my seat. I'm like, okay, children's just controlling it. Like, where's the chess match coming from? Because I felt like there was something coming.

Daniel's sliding down the front straightway, and I'm thinking, let's not throw the yellow yet. Yeah. And then he got into the grass, kind of sort of like got stuck for a second. So eventually, if I was in the booth, I likely would have mashed the button. Yeah, and actually, and I kind of, the first. field was a little so speedways if everybody was together yeah and we have three quarters of a lap until they get back there i think you could give them time but i think at that point of the race there's enough wrecked cars still on the racetrack that there are still cars coming off four at speed we were so

zoomed in on daniel when he's sliding into the grass and i'm like well i don't know really what's going on around the race is he in danger is he in danger right yeah there was a lot of conversation about uh the broadcast and that's a difficult position for me and you to be in i do want to touch on it because people certainly were reacting to commercials and there was a lot of frustration around that. It's a tough spot for me and you to be in because we work in the booth. We work in the business and we understand it a little bit differently. But I was surprised while I was watching the race.

So I'm watching the race and Mike Joy talked about this on Twitter. And I thought, man, they must be front-loading this race. That's what sometimes happens in the booth. We run a lot of commercials when there's a lot of green flag action. We're not missing major moments. or really spectacular risk-taking, you know, crazy things happening. A lot of times we may try to front-load the commercials into the first stage. That gives us a chance to say at the end, you know, hey, man, for the last 20 laps,

we're going to stick around. That's right. And so I thought that that's what they were doing. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. Mike Joy touched on that a little bit, that that's a common practice for them. I would have never have guessed that the commercial rate was flat

from 2001 to 2010 to 2023. Yeah, as far as number of commercials. Right, right. So there was a graph on Twitter that Jamie Little and a few other people were passing around, and basically, I mean, an informal sort of look at commercial breaks in 2001, 2010,

and 203. And the percentage of green with ads was up higher in 01, higher even in, well, it was only 2% lower in 2010. There were more breaks. So 23 and 2023, 19 and 20 in 2001 and 2010. So a little more, a few more breaks, but the amount of laps that we missed was very similar. The amount of green flags laps that we missed was actually lower than 2001. I mean, it's, anyways, the point is that it was flat.

One of the things that drives me crazy, and I feel like I can say this without getting in too much trouble, and you don't have to comment if you don't want to. Don't leave me down a road to get me in trouble now. I know. So the amount of commercials to me doesn't bother me one bit. If anything, that, and this is me, this is my personal opinion. This probably is not something shared by a lot of people, but that to me speaks to the enormity of the event or the, importance of the event or the specialness or uniqueness of it, right? Just like for the Super Bowl, a lot of companies put a lot of effort.

Right. And we sit through those commercials to see, you know, pick and choose and criticize. And I similarly did the same thing for the 500. Obviously. You saw a lot of the same commercials in a shortened version pop back up again being on Fox again. Like, oh, I recognize that one. That one kind of showed up at the 500. or excuse me, showed up at the Super Bowl, and now we see it again.

So, I mean, I wasn't bothered by the amount of commercials or the amount of them or how often they were coming. I didn't think I was really missing much when the commercials would come on. Now, of course, we did have that one crash that happened during the side-by-side, which is unfortunate. It happens all the time. But to their defense, they weren't a side-by-side. They were. We weren't completely away. Our producers will come in our ear and say, hey, is there about to be a lead change?

Can we go to commercial here? They're trying. That's to tell you, the fan, listening. They are really making an effort to try not to miss any action. But if they think the lead changes happen, they'll try to hold off. Right. And, you know, usually they take a little direction from the booth. Clint Boyer, Tony Stewart, what are you feeling?

They about to wreck. Right. We need to stay here. One of the things, though, that has – one of the things, though, that surprised me or I've learned or come to understand and didn't recognize. Like when I was watching races all of my life, I didn't, you got me. Right. Networked.

You got me on this one. But when I got into the booth, I'm like, oh, okay, this is how this works. It's the ads that are happening while we're watching the race. There was a moment when they went to interview Noah Gragson during a stage break running 30th, whatever, right? Just because that was an ad by Wendy's. Right. So they went to Noah and said, hey, Noah has your race going? Right.

Okay, thanks, Noah. Yeah, man, Noah's then having a great time. Noah, I think, even read a promo from the seat. Yes. He had, so he had some marching orders, right? Yeah, I liked it. And so. I was impressed as a better way.

Good for Noah. Yeah. That happened. And then immediately after that, we had a Toyota manufacturers ad buy where we went to set on cameras, bumper cameras, roof cameras of about three or four Toyota's, right? And those things, a lot of times are happening. and if you pay attention, you'll pick up on when it's an obvious ad purchase on air. Right.

And so I think that's a necessary part of it. I understand that the networks are trying to take advantage of the opportunity to bring in ad revenue. They need to. It's expensive to put on these races. Sometimes, though, I get just the frequency of it or how it's done. could it be done differently to where we don't step away from where the action really is, right? And so that was the one. I now, I think I'm even more critical because now I know how the, how the recipes made.

Yep. Now I know how it's cooked. And so now I'm watching the race completely differently. And I'm like, we're looking at this and I want to look at this. We're looking at this. And I want to be looking at this. We're looking at this and I want to see this. why are we looking at that? Why aren't we looking at this?

And I'm overly critical, overly analyzing. So you're going to love this. Marv, our producer, he told me, after like year one, he goes, you're not going to believe this, but working a TV, he's going to ruin watching TV for you. What are you talking about? Just watch. When you watch a football game, you're going to be like, well, no, no, show me this. Because before you didn't even know that was possible.

Right. Now you know, oh, no, there's a guy with a switch. He can show me that. That's what I want to see. You're so right. You know, the problem I have is you and I want to watch probably the same race. So it's good when I sit at home and I watch it with my wife and my father-in-law and all these people because as I'm sitting over there starting to steam because they're not showing me what I want

and I want to see this green flag cycle or this blend for the, you know, my father-in-law thinks what they're showing him is the best thing ever. He has zero interest in what I want to see. He doesn't know what he's missing. Yeah, that's the challenge. It's kind of like it's like the experience of the broadcast. what's right, what's wrong. There isn't a right answer,

and I think that's really the struggle. The struggle is it just comes down to opinions. I really thought that... We have the same complaints because you and I, we could literally just, like, we want to watch it, like I'm standing on top of the stance watching. Like, I just want to watch the battles I want to watch. Yeah.

It's interesting, man. And I will say, too, I don't envy Fox and those guys having to get in the, be in mid-season form right out of the gate. Totally. So I will, like, when me and you go, when we go back to work at NBC, man, I really don't feel like we're hitting on all cylinders

until like four races to go. Yeah. Like the season's coming to an end. I'm like, man, we really starting to get somewhere. Right. And I can't imagine how, I guess, you know, how much pressure. Like the Fox football guys, they had the NFL,

or they had the Super Bowl. But they had a whole year. Yeah. Like to your point, you know, for Boyer and Mike, they say, hey, we're going to send you out to California. I'm going to do, you know, the clash. Then here we are. It's a great American race. Like, don't mess us up.

Be as great as you can be. That's true. I thought Tony Stewart was great in the booth. Mike Joy is always exceptional. Clint bringing his general. So I will say this. I agree with all that. But I think Tony's spectacular in the booth.

But what I want is, but that's not the Tony I know. And that's like new, older, polished, like race. driver Tony and now listen or excuse me race car owner Tony yeah I still want like you know 2006 Tony now perhaps he that wouldn't work in the booth but gosh it'd be entertaining a little more critical just just he can say someone does something dumb yeah like he's Tony Stewart yeah I kind of had the same feel about Jeff Gordon right like Jeff Gordon can be like nope that was a dumb move right there he shouldn't have done it and if you don't believe me I've won 93 races right and Tony Stewart can be like nope that was dumb right there and if you don't believe me here's my championship trophies

You know, it's... No one would not believe Tony. Well, that's, yes. And I think he almost knows that. And I think he, you know, he doesn't want to, like, hammer the gavel on a driver. Because he knows that his voice is going to, like, you know, he doesn't want to put them in this awkward spot. Yeah. But, yeah, no, I'm with you.

I thought overall it was fun. It was fun to watch Stenhouse. I think a popular winner for me. Single car team. That kind of helped. That made my heart warm a little bit. I hear about all these orders and manufacturers and all this stuff. And yet, oh, here we go.

Single car team. I heard rumors that there was some uncertainty about that particular team going forward what they were going to do with their charter and whether they would continue to compete as they were in one form or another. And a win like that, I know because same thing in the Xfinity series. What we went through in the Xfinity series was about a, you know, at minimum a $300,000 swing. Right. You know, so for them to win that race is a huge, that's like signing an associate sponsor

right on the spot, right? That's going to help them insulate them a little bit throughout the year to take on some of the, you know, some of the cost of damage and so forth going out, you know, makes that West Coast swing a whole lot easier. Well, an A plus for JTG for signing and believing in Stenhouse last year. And the reason I said that is because you already mentioned what's doing from an owner's perspective, but I believe from a driver's perspective, Stanhouse is good. He's going to be able to drive as long as he wants now.

New Crew Chief. You can make the championship with whatever you have, you know, if you win a race and he win at all of them. You mentioned new crew chief, Mike Kelly. Listen, I think Brian Paddy's very smart. I think Mike Kelly's very smart. I don't think this was about smart. What I heard was that there's this belief in this T. He's rallied the troops where we're going to be the best version of us. We believe in you, Ricky. You believe in us. Let's go do it. So it's a race car driver because I thought Ricky was more patient throughout the race. Is it fair to think that some of that adds up? Does he feel, if everyone believes in him and his owner's telling him it's kind of just be calm,

You think he feels less pressure to be so perfect for the first three or four hundred miles, or do you think he's just maturing? Like, what creates this, I don't know, like I think he's made way better good decisions through the course of the race? I don't really, I can't be sure. He did get married. He did sort of have. Oh, I forgot that.

Yeah, you're right. You know, when your personal life gets in order, my gosh, it makes you a lot calmer, a lot less anxious and anxious people make, you know, rash decisions. And so that could have an effect on it, a calming effect on him. But I believe that he and Brian Patty, more than likely, were as close as they could be. Right. You know, they had a great relationship. But they had been doing the same thing.

Yeah. And there comes a point when both people wonder, man, what else is there? What's outside of this? And there, you know, somebody just had. to be big enough to go, you know what, maybe we should both go try something different. We've been doing this a long time and we could do it again. And it's probably going to net the same results. What do you say?

And I think it's probably great for Ricky to have a change for better or worse, whether this works in his favor or not. I think to at least out of the gate starting a season, you have a renewed hope. that it will be different. It will be better. Cars are going to drive a little differently. Man, I would get excited about driving a different car. I would get excited about a crew chief change, even if the very same car was the car I raced the week before.

Because there was a possibility he was going to do the bump different, he was going to change casters and care. The thing was going to do some different things in the middle of the corner, enter in the corner, exit in the corner. and he would have different ideas on how to fix problems that I had with the car. Whether that was going to make me faster or not, I just knew I was going to hear some new stuff, right, and try some new things. And so I think that's probably got him pretty excited too. Now, that wears away really fast.

Yeah. If the performance isn't there, you can jump right into panic mode in just a week or two. Right. But I think this wind's going to carry them quite a ways before they have, you know, they have to worry about that. The one thing that I noticed about the race that was interesting, the third lane didn't form at all. To me, this car's a strange car to watch at the plate races. How the runs materialize, how quickly, you know, they seem, it's going to not always make sense. I could literally with the old car know exactly when the outside line was going to create momentum

and when a guy was in a bad position or when somebody was trying to take advantage of somebody, and it's a little harder to see. And some things kind of surprise you, runs that happen and runs that don't happen, right? You sit there and watch them go, they should be creating some momentum, what's going on. Right. And the other thing, too, is with the rack and the toe links and all that, the way these cars lose control and how they act and look and react like the 12 Blaney and Reddick and them, that crap. Like when they get bumped and out of control, it's somewhat even comical how twitchy and at the mercy of, you know.

And add the tire. I think a lot, you know, we used to have this car riding on this big, squishy tire. So like you'd slide a little right, you'd turn in the, and the tire would be like, I'm going to help you nod overcorrect. And you're going to come back this way. And now that tire is like, man, like a pair of converse, like All-Stars. There's nothing to it. Nothing. If you turn left, it's left.

And you go, oh, I don't want to go left, right. Left, right? Oh, I'm wrecked. I know. It is. It is. If you put it over some music, it would absolutely make you giggle. Yeah. Even though you know this is the best guy, you know, some of the best guys in the world trying to save them and they don't have a chance. Way behind on the steering. You might as well just skip, like, just skip a correction. I hate the laugh because they are not laughing. They are not. But you are right. You're like, oh, that's savable. That's what makes Larson save so incredible. When he got turned sideways in the middle of three and four, that he's Larson. I know, one of the greatest drivers.

currently in the world. I don't know that he gets that saved every single time. Absolutely. Right? Nothing. So, listen, listen, when this car turns sideways, nothing is helping you. The old car you turned sideways and the arrow would dump on that thing. You'd have this big cane right there.

Like, oh, yeah, there's my airbag. I'm good. I'm straight. This one's the opposite. You start to slide the back of the car and all you want is more rear grip. And instead, as this car turned sideways, all the air goes to the front tires. So you're like, no, I don't want those to be any more positive. And now you're like, like you said, now you're chasing it.

The third light, so this car when I watch it race, so it's funny because you and I see this very differently. You experience the old car so well. You would see runs develop. And like in your mind, you're like, oh, well, that's happening. And I am three-tenths per second behind you. I'm like, really? Oh, yeah, there it is. Like I couldn't see it like you saw it.

Now this car seems like it is a truck. It's like it's up against this big draggy like it. It's just ready to go. So it doesn't take much of a sniff of a draft for it to really accelerate. But I think the difference is for me a great – and you taught me this, and Gordon taught me this, you know, a great speedway car would get a run and then keep a run. Yeah. For an extra 500 feet, for an extra 1,000 feet, for that last foot that you need to pull down in line.

When we won the 500, there was like a moment there with, I don't know, 15 or 20 to go that we had to complete a pass. And I'm like, man, if that car is not good enough, it doesn't complete that pass, right? And that makes the whole day. This car, it's like it gets a run real quick and it loses a run real quick. Yes. Like the energy is gone. So you better do something with it. And for that reason, if a pass used to take a lap and a half, now a pass takes like half a lap.

You know, if you go back to watch the finish, right, Stenhouse pulls to the left at like the last minute. He forces Larson to either push him or go to the middle. I don't know if Larson, I don't think he did the wrong thing going in the middle. You would know better than me. He at least tried to win the 500. But then the wreck happens, and the 47 has already pushed back by the 22. Like in the old car, I think the 22 is still leading off turn 2. I just don't think the bottom line pushes them out there that quick.

I watched the race, and there's no third lane. It's two about two from front to back. And my frustration just gradually grows and grows for the guy in eighth, the guy in 12th, the guy in 20th. the guy in 20th. He cannot do anything. He can't do nothing. Right. And it's, to me, the way that race ran with those two lines basically locked down and

and the only people, nobody able to really make a move. Nobody could really force the middle. Nobody could go to the top and create a third lane. It's no different than when they go to the top and ride around the top. When they go to the top and ride around the top, you know that if they all agree to do it, that's what we're going to watch for the next 40 minutes. right somebody's going to try to get down there Denny Hamlin or a few guys are going to try to bust it up and we hope that they do

but for the most part if everybody agrees to go to the top we could watch an hour of that right that's what I was sitting there doing watching basically the same thing but just two by two on the bottom and but this goes back to the coverage and once again I'm with you I'm not picking on Fox because I think we leave our own races and go man I wish we would have shown something different or like it's a total team effort you're not always going to give what you want That's why for me the green flag cycles were so important because it was the only time we saw a new group show up at the front.

They didn't drive there. Through this five or six laps of green flag cycles, they were better at it somehow. Took less fuel on and off pit road. You know what I mean? Like, no, it's not like, you know, let me see if I get the team right. RFK, I'm finally getting it.

It's almost normal to say RFK. You know, they cycled to the front of the 500 through pit stops. They didn't drive there. So it's like those are the moments of this five. all day long was to your point. It might as well be single file around the top, and then you all pit, and then we reset the field,

and then we kind of ride like that to the next pit stop, or the stage end. I don't know what. I mean, I just feel like that fundamentally the car isn't a really, really great super speedway car, the package or whatever you want to, whatever you want to call it. I would not know what the hell to do to make it better

or what I don't have an opinion on, oh man, they should change this or that. The dragginess of it is probably a big problem that keeps them bottled up and limited on what they can do and forces the guy that's intent to sit there and ride intent, even though he would love to get creative. He has no ability to really get creative and do much. I think the drag on the cars probably plays a big role. Illhandling, too. I wasn't there to scan a bunch of drivers, but Lugano got out and said, hey, I didn't choose the bottom because I couldn't run the bottom.

And I was like, he wasn't comfortable. I didn't see that. Like visually, we've watched a lot of races. Usually I could be like, oh, man, Lugano can't run the bottom. Look, it was sliding up. I didn't physically see anything he was talking about. I absolutely believe him. So it is like, how is that being hidden from us?

You know, it's crazy. Yeah, in the first stage during the day when the sun was on the racetrack, at the end of the stage, you could see guys missing the bottom off a four. Remember how you get tight? There was a couple times where a couple of the guys lost the car and luckily didn't clean out the outside line or make contact with anybody, when it got cooler, that threat goes away. And with the tire that we have, it happens too late in the run.

If they started this race earlier, we'd have a hotter, slicker race track to where, you know, tireware handling would really play a role throughout the entire event. We saw a little bit of that in the first half of the race, where toward the end of those stages, guys were like, oh, I'm out of the gas. Right. You know. And the guy on the outside was like, oh, I'm lifting.

I'm trying to give this guy some space. Don't rub me over. Those are some cool moments when you know that there's some panic and guys trying to save their tail. Fire out the pipes. It's kind of like the bull's eye. Look at that guy. He is out of control at this point. There was one time in the broadcast down the back straightaway that they were all lined up on the two by two.

And Denny was the third car on the inside. And somebody had him jacked up. All the way down the back straight away, fire is coming out of the pipes. Pop, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. but he's not losing time to the car in front. The guy behind him is shoving him and got him jacked up, and he's out of throttle. Like, oh, let me go.

Turn me loose. Oh, well, listen, I do think that the 500 is starting to have a little signature, and I want to get your opinion on this because it kind of goes down where your dad was. It took 20 years for your father to win the 500. Brad Kozlowski hasn't won it? Shocking, because he's a great play racer. Kyle Bush hasn't won it? True X hasn't want it?

Like the list of, like, we're talking Hall of Famers that have yet to win, like, kind of the great. So I have posed this question, so I'm going to ask this question to you. So the fans, someone had said, hey, in the last little bit, we've seen a bunch of, we'll call them non-favorants. They've been long shots. Cindrick, you know, Ricky Stenhouse, you know, the game will guy over here. I'm going to call them long shots, over 30 to 1s. I think that only adds to the aura of the great American race. Like say the biggest race of the year was run at Charlotte.

I'm going to make this up. I think it would lose a little signature that the most funded team could go down there and out engineer everybody else and dominate a race for decades and decades and decades because they have something figured out. What I think makes Daytona so special is there is this air. I hate to use the word luck, but you have to definitely have some good fortune with a good team and everything else go your way to win that race. And I think that's kind of growing with now something like,

listen, Kyle being the biggest, the guy's won 60 racing and has never won that race. It's starting to kind of get that little bit of an eerie feel like will he ever get his chance to win that race. Well, I think that there is a bunch of luck to win in the Daytona 500. There is a lot of luck. You got to miss Rex. You got to, you know, have a few things go your way. Cautions fall correctly. But there are some moments. You mentioned it. Whether it's, whether you want to call that luck or skill or great instincts, there are some moments where Ricky has to choose to do something and he it, right, pulls down in front of the five, forces the bottom line to push him through one and two to be able to clear off of two to win the race. There's guys that are always up at the front of

these races, Brad, Denny, it's because they're good at it. Well, I was going to challenge your luck statement that you and I ran four of these together. We had a flat running third. We ran second, second and first. Yeah. So I'm like, you found your way to the front of these a whole lot. So to your point, the skill does make a difference. There is some skill. It's an approach. It's an idea. It's a mentality of how you need to race. And I think that there's some knowledge about the air and the draft. There's some, there is some knowledge. There is some, you know, there is some important things that you need to know, but there's also just instinct and being brave or going for it. Or, you know, there's times in that race when you're watching. You got to be selfish. It's an

Uncharacteristic trait. A lot of people don't want to be selfish. You're taught not to be selfish. But in the Daytona 500 or racing in a restricted plate races, you have to be out for yourself. You have to faint some support sometimes to teammates throughout the day. But when it really comes down to it, you're not going to be there. You're not going to push them across the finish line to win the race.

You want to do that. You've got a whole team waiting on you to do that. I have a Speedweek's pet peeve. What is it? So I'm a guest, so I don't want to do. Bring it up in the segment, but I have a pet peeve. Yeah. I was down there for the Dules, watching them, scanning a bunch of cars.

And a bunch of cars with young drivers, I heard, man, just stay in line. We want to take care of our equipment. We just, hey, let's not wreck this car. It's our car for Sunday. And I was dang near boiling up there. And this is my pet peeve. This is the only mulligan you get in your racing career. So I'll pick on the 21.

That's a great point. scanning the 21 and their strategy, which was executed very well by their driver, was, hey, cruiser, single file, don't worry about it. We're going to start top 10, Daytona 500. And I'm losing my mind because I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, zig, push, shove. And if you stuff at the fence, that's great. Because we'll just get the other one out. Because on Sunday, I want you to line up and he had the chance against the ones you mentioned, the Hamlins, the Brad's, the Ligano's. And I'm expecting this 22-year-old young man who's had very little practice in his cup career. He's had one, one-hundredth of the laps of most of those other guys have

in drafting. And you expect him to outdule them with one-one-hundredth of the knowledge. So my pet peeve are these teams that I'm not ignorant to the financial implications if he wrecks that race car. But if we're so close, we can't wreck a race car on the duels, what are we doing? why are we going down there? Like that's my pet. My pet peeve is that if Kyle Larson, the front row guy, is ziggin and zagging and dueling and doing everything he can, he's not doing that, in my opinion, to finish better.

He's doing that because it's like, man, I'm not very good at this. And I'm self-admittedly not very good at this. So the only way I know how to get better is to practice. So here I go, I'm practicing. And practice is a joke because it's four manufacturers, or four from this manufacturer, four from this one, running single file. So the only real drafting practice, it's kind of like restart practice.

The only way to get better is to lead races. Well, the only way to get better at drafting, you've taught me this, is to draft. So my pet peeve is these teams that don't allow their young drivers to go make a huge mistake on Thursday because it's the only time all you're along you can make one and it not cost points or, you know. Yeah. That was my pet peeve of Speed Weeks. That's a great point. And I've talked about that in the past.

The other thing, too, is if I'm out there and I'm watching Harrison or a young driver, and he makes some great moves, I'm really more likely to go with him on Sunday. So I didn't even think of that side. If I see him not do anything or I'm not learning anything about him and his ability and how much he knows about side drafting and how to do that properly. You know, I always... Like it's an audition, you mean, for the other half of the drivers watching the duel.

Practice in the 2000s, practice was a chance to go out there and show everybody your car was the best. It's funny you said. By the end of Speed Weeks, before we see, started on Sunday. We all kind of knew. Man, if this guy makes the move, you better go with him. Because that thing has been a rocket all week long. And if he goes, guess where he's going?

We want to be in his lane. And guess what happened all day on Sunday? Everybody went with that guy. Yeah. Yeah. I like what you're thinking there. That was my pet pee. I'll also admit, God, I don't want to do this publicly.

I was team no practice. Yeah. I was like, man, we know you practice? Yeah. I was wrong. One hour. just even single car runs. Yeah.

Just get it. I was wrong. Not that I had a vote in it, but I would have been team no practice. I was wrong. Should have had a little bit of practice. It would have been good for a few guys. It would have been just good for the sport, to be honest.

It had been like, hey man, we're back. Yeah. And listen, I think Pat, Pistronomy and the race was cool. I think there's an opportunity with this car and the teams and the charters for other big names. Elios says he wants to run the 500. How's Elio going to run the 500 if he doesn't get to get in high gear until he qualifies? Yeah.

I didn't think of it. that way. Like, Elio's not going, he's like, no, man, I got to have, like, a few laps. Connor didn't even get to get into high gear and qualify. Yeah. So I was team no practice. I was wrong. Let's find an hour.

Where did your pick finish in the race? How did your pick do? My overall picks? No, your winner. Who did you have win it? So I, all week long, I basically pick one of every manufacturer and avoided the question. And I said, it's going to be a Blaney, Hamlin, Elliott duel. Yeah.

Because that's what I felt. Well, Blaney and Elliot wrecked in the same wreck, and Hamlin was kind of nowhere to be found, so I was a major O for three on the three guys I thought were going to duel for the win. I had Chastain. He was making me look pretty smart till he got busted on pit road for doing something speeding or something. He speeding on entry, I think. He won the second stage and then sped on the pit road, I think.

I think you're right. Right after that. I will say the one on Dirty Mo Doe, we talked about who we didn't think was going to run good, and I was like, listen, we're going to fade, which basically means we don't love Kyle Larson. He don't like Speedway racing into this. And about the end of regulation on our text thread,

I had a buddy say, Kyle Larson is getting ready to make us look really, really, really stupid if he wins this race. Now, unfortunately for Kyle Larson, he got a caught up in the wreck, finished 18th. So that made us look a little less dumb that he definitely did have his hiccup and his issues. But the three I thought were going to dominate the race didn't. Even Hamlin, Denny was kind of up there, but he didn't have that pizzazz. The whole race didn't.

Well, I mean, when the average. After we talked about it, after a restart, the front row could lock down the whole field. So Denny and those guys are really limited on what they were able to do to move through the field. We got to quickly talk about the Exfinity race. Junior Motorsports races out of this building right here. Sitting there with all four cars lined up second through fifth with, you know, 15, 10 laps to go. And it all went to hell. Well said.

Yeah. I mean, you know, people are going to, you know, I saw the social media comments, you know, get your boys to figure it out, get your boys to line up, why ain't they working together? That is such a tough position to be in. We've been talking about this for a couple days and me and the team and the drivers. The problem with this is there's not an answer to this. It's not two plus two equals four. Here you go. Go down the road with that. There's nothing. I'm not, I told the drivers we would, I would never, I prefer not to give them a script. I prefer not to give them a choreographed, hey, this is how we're going to do it. This way

we're going to run the race. I want you guys to be like, you know, do this, do this, do that. When they start the race, I thought they won't, they ran an incredible race all day. They did. I'm going to let them do whatever they want to do. You got to run, take your run. You got, you want to lead a little bit? Do you think you got enough car to do it? Do it. So it's, it's, so this is where I know you, I think, too well. I don't know why this surprises anyone. Like, what I saw is your opinion of drafting through your own drivers. And this is a compliment to you and your organization. And people can hate me for saying this.

You and I would go to these team debriefs, and we'd be talking about how we're all going to work together, right? And you would look at Gordon, and Gordon would look at you and be like, man, I don't think I could do that. And he's like, yeah, me either. He's like, we're just going to agree right now that we're not going to be mad at the end of the race. We're going to do whatever it takes. Yep, okay.

And walk out. Well, guess what? Guess what the two best drafters were in the room? You two. So when I watched Junior Motorsports, I watched teamwork to the excellent degree to get the second to fifth. But I was watching that with some friends, and they were like, oh, man, the junior teammates going to do this and this and this.

I said, nope, no, they're not. And like, oh, yeah, they are. I said, no, they're not. And here's why. So it's easy for someone who's the only people that should care what happened that day are you, your sister, and those four drivers. And here's why I say that. If I'm Brandon Jones, knew the team, man, I'm your guy.

I just need to know what you want. I'm okay if the team is go win a race, guys. And, you know, I would be mad if I wrecked my, you know, a ridiculous block. But I didn't see any of that. I saw a speedway racing that went wrong. So I hear what you're saying. I saw the same things on social media. And it's easy to say they should work together.

Well, but it's refreshing. Let me just say it's refreshing that they actually raced because I am not a big, the first time, and I've said this before, that I watch a teammate, push another teammate across the line for the Daytona 500 or not pull out of line, I'm going to lose my mind. So I could see how it is worth discussing. And maybe you want to change your approach because financially it wasn't good. But I like, at least I think it's clear how they were expected to race.

We went around and around on this what we could have done and should have done. And you can literally shoot holes in just about any idea. If we had went, you know, should we go around the 21 with 10 to go as early as possible, right? go ahead and put him to the back. It's possible, but I think that actually breaks up one or two of our guys off the, you know. No doubt. He ends up racing side by side with third or four. The third of the fourth guy isn't getting through.

No. Yep. And so if we wait to the very last lap, the third and fourth junior emergency sports car, that serves them no purpose. They're not going to, they have no chance to have to sit. That's very stingy to ask them to sit in line. Well, you basically said we don't, we're not going to give you a chance to win this race. Yeah. And so, you know, did I love Justin B.

pulling out of line. In hindsight, probably not. But honestly, if I was driving his car, it's probably the same move I would have made. We didn't lose that race in that moment. But it's hard to say. And the one thing that I would say that we could do differently or that we could do better, and this is on me. So as an owner, right, you can always try to improve how do you communicate with

different drivers, how they like to be talked to, how they like, you know, what kind of information they want. But in those scenarios, if that's Penske lined up, or if that's Richard Childeris racing or Hendrick, who are you going to hear on the radio at some point in those last 10 laps? Yeah. Yeah, you're going to see, hear somebody other than the drivers and crew chiefs for sure. Yep. So I've, I probably fell short in that moment to really go, hey, guys, in a great spot right here. Everybody kind of recognized the moment, whether that would have really changed anything that anybody decided to do, but it might have put the, it might have put the light bulb on for those guys to go, oh yeah, we are all lined up right here. We do have mount numbered. So that was one thing.

I was sitting in, I was sitting at that racetrack and I've never been a guy to jump on the radio and rah, right, rah, before the race or or even during the race, really giving any hands-on advice. I know that Roger Penske would have. I know that in that moment Rick probably would have. Certainly, Richard Trillers. I would have definitely had a hand on my shoulder. Rick would have been like, hey, we should encourage them to work together. That's right. Right. I wish I would have done that. I didn't. The other thing is you talk about the meeting with Hendrick Motorsports on Saturday before the Sunday race at Talladega or Daytona. We'd sit down and we'd say, hey, what are you willing to do for me? What should I expect from you?

Okay. I think we would leave there, at least having an understanding of like, okay, Dale's already say he's going to do what he has to do, so don't be mad when he does it. He just told me right to my face. We're going to have this conversation now, so we don't have the argument after. I think that's a great point. Our guys, I don't believe, communicated enough to get to really know what to expect from each other. All right, man, you know, I'm going to help you all day long until this moment.

Then I'm probably not going to be dependable, right? Expect me to be a little aggressive. Or, man, I got you back all that long, man. I'm here for you. Right. Whatever. Whatever it is. Just everybody be transparent.

And so going in that race, you kind of know where your defenses need to be, right? How to handle those. But now, to define your company, though, this is a great transition year for your company because you have a couple new crew chiefs, a new driver, a new guy in the role of competition director. Like, he's been here a long time and not in that role. And the reason I say that is because I appreciate what you're saying. But that mantra, that mentality, that approach, you can't just come in the day before. as the owner said this is how we're going to, like it's, as much as it's painful here a week

out, I actually think you guys are going to circle this date and go, oh man, we went a lot of races because that one went totally bad. Yeah. Because I think if you would have had that meeting, I would have been like, yeah, oh yeah, we've been all been in these meetings. It's fine. Like, why am I listening? You know, it's kind of like when you get your first F in school, you're like, I'm paying attention now. Yeah. Because I really need, so it's kind of. That was certainly a teaching moment. You'll have, my point is when you want to meet with everybody before Atlanta or Talladega or if Bumpgarner does or your sister does, I think you're going to have everybody's attention a little bit more than you would have the first race

just because they lived it. I did tell the drivers, I said, you know, if we're sitting there with, you know, 10 laps to go and we're all in the top five, y'all need to recognize the situation. That's right. It might not never happen again. But if it does, things are a little bit different. You need to know they're different and you need to recognize they're different. the problem I have is trying to tell them exactly what that means.

What does that mean for the fourth guy, the third guy, right? And I can't ask him to, all right, man, you're going to finish fourth. All right, if you're the fourth guy, five to go, that's just the way it is. All right, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to tell him that he's just to surrender to the other three. And so, but I did tell them. I said, you know, we're not done talking about this because we don't have a true solution. but if we are ever in that situation again,

we will not and cannot lose the race. Yeah, we're going to do it different. Yeah. So I kind of equate it to the Cendric block on Blaney for the 500 a year ago. Yeah. Everybody's like, I can't believe he blocked Blaney. I said, oh, I can't.

And I can't believe Blaney's mad at it. They said, so you have no problem. I said, listen, as long as Austin wins the race, it's fine. Now, if he blocks Blaney and Bubba wins on the bottom, totally different meeting on Monday. Yeah. Which could happen. Which could happen.

But that's what you're saying about your drivers is, hey, guys, I believe in driver's ability enough. I'm not going to put a script out here how I think you need to do it. But I think it's fair as an owner to say, but you four need to go hang out together and say, okay, what could we have done different? Because now the owners said, hey, we got to be more successful when we are in this position. Like, to your point, you're going to have more and more conversations. I don't hate your approach because I think that, I don't think it's by chance.

A single car won the 500. I think team orders, I want to talk about that final research. Like Childress doing that whole pull-down thing. Flat didn't work. Like the top lane drove around them. So sometimes T-Motors, and I'm bad at it because I was a guy in the pit-box. I've never driven one. Guys like me think, man, we know better.

Like, no, no, this is what you should do. And then half the time I'm going to give the team's credit. But then the other half, the driver's like, I told you that wasn't going to work, and it didn't work. So I do think, you know, you aren't Richard Childress or Roger Penske. But you also are a driver, which I think changes your kind of approach to it. Team orders, I mean, at those races, nothing is going to work 100% of the time. No. And, I mean, that went as bad as it could possibly go.

It's almost more like, listen, if you're the fourth guy in line with 10 to go, you have to understand yourself. You have put yourself in position to not win this race. So now your mentality has to set, be like, man, I hate this, but I'm the fourth one in line, so I'm just going to follow my teammates, you know. It was embarrassing. I hope we don't do that again. Going to the next race, Fontana, man, this is the last race on the two-mile.

course. And I don't know what happens going forward. It's apparently going to get reconfigured two years later. We're going to have a short track. That's not, I don't think that's 100% written in stone. But that's the plan. I believe that this track is a lot

of fun. Multi-grove. I badly wanted to go run the Xfinity race there this weekend. I had two races that I was going to run this year, but we couldn't put together a package that would activate and work for a partner on the West Coast. All the people that we're working with, they're like, hey, man, we want to, we want to function in this part of the country, and this is where we need to sell stuff. So I didn't get a deal put together, but I am, so I'm a little envious about, you know, the Xfinity and the Cup guys going out there and the fun they're going to have.

It's a blast. It is. It's, you know what, I have this conversation internally that I believe that the beauty of the NASCAR series is that we have completely different races everywhere we go. so it's okay if you watch Fontana and you don't like it. It's okay if you say, no, man, I'm a Bristol and a Martinsville guy. Good for you, right? But there's a group of race fans out there, me being one of them that like that worn out, slippery, bumpy racetrack and what you have to do to be good at it.

I'm excited to see last week was the Daytona 5th. That's not the kickoff to the season of me. That's its own thing. So I want to say who's good. Like, it's the second year of this car. So as an off season changed, like who learned what over the off season? Can they learn anything? When you think about Fontana, like I think, when I think about the race,

there I remember all these really wild crazy finishes right Harvick whipping around the top and passing Jimmy Jenny's crashed the 22 and 18 all kind of banging into the fence so on that last lap there's been some spectacular moments and I feel like that the track is actually got a popular vibe about it right now oh I hope the place is like sold out and electric and all the Decision makers are like, have we messed this up? I wonder what's driving that decision to reconfigure. So I believe, I'm a big believer in this, and I say this all the time, I think that one challenge the sport has is everything takes so long.

Yeah. So I'm going to change the track. We're going to change the car, and the rules can change. And it's so hard to get those three in sync. Yeah. So what I mean by that is it's like, so Texas changed three or one and two, and then the rules package, I would have said, man, have been better on the old track. and so California says,

hey, we're going to switch to a short track. Well, I don't think it's a secret that the short track package is not the most entertaining in this car. It's scary right now. Like the two-mile track is going to be way more entertaining. So it's this hard. I think that's what's so impressive about, like, you know, we're both looking at our iPhones, right?

So Apple comes out with this phone that takes a year to produce. How do they dream what we're going to want? A better camera, more storage. You know, so I think the sports is the same way. Like, I actually think the two-mile track is what they need for this car currently. Oh, yeah. I think that the property values and. that's the point.

This is no different than your local short track that's gone away for apartments. You're going to lose a cup race because I think they've done sold the land. I think you're right. Even if it was the greatest weekend ever, Fontana, the, they're done signed the contract. Well, you also have to remember we talk markets. We were just there two weeks ago at the Coliseum. Yeah. Like when you think about the markets at times, like I love the Coliseum idea.

It was great, but should Auto Club still be the second race of the year if we were literally just in the same state? 45 miles away at the, you know. And that, yeah, that's another thing. So if we don't race in, if we don't race at Fontana, everybody's like, well, what are we going to do? We can't not race in South of California. We can't not be there? Can we not?

I mean, why can't we? Right. Just a damn year, you know. We had never been to Idaho. Dude, during the pandemic year, there was a lot of places we didn't go to. Right. Right. We was racing in a lot of tracks, two and three.

three, four times. Listen, I say the trick to the schedule is not anything magical other than change. I don't understand the, the, oh, we have to run in Southern. We have to figure out a place to go. We have to go. Vegas. We got Phoenix. We're on that side of the country.

People drive to these things. If they did, you know, insist that there is absolutely no way to have a season without a Southern California points paying race, I would hope that they would consider a place like Irwindale. What do you think? Oh, I think Irwindale would be a cool track. Listen, I'd be fine. We don't need more road courses.

But when you talk about famous road courses, I'm like, well, let's go to Laguna Seca. Hey. Where is Laguna Seca? I mean, it's so it's a little, maybe a little farther north, right? It's up, heck, I don't really know, Monterey. So it's maybe south of San Francisco's, maybe too little too close to Sonoma. Okay. But, I mean, there's got to be short tracks out there somewhere.

Yeah. Well, I know the short track packages got everybody on edge right. now is whether they've made any gains on it or not. But there ain't no other two-mile tracks out there. That's the problem. Is there a lot of half-mile tracks? Yeah. Let's go to some of those.

Two miles are. Yeah. So, no, I hope it's a great range. Let's not go to a Coliseum. Let's not go to a street course. Let's not, you know, I don't hate your Lagoon-Nusake idea. So listen, I love the concept of the Coliseum, but I don't think it needs to be in the Coliseum.

Where? Why can't it move? What happens if you did the same concept? They own the safer barriers. They own the fencing. You're just putting them some asphalt down. What happens if you put that at Texas A&M? Is it big enough?

I don't know. They said the Coliseum has a unique sort of footprint. This is I don't know. Or like, what if you put it in the park lot of the Mall of America? Went to Minneapolis in the summer for the All-Star Race. Like, I love the idea of a temporary track to bring it to markets that don't have a track, assuming there are some. But let's go.

What if you can put in Lambeau Field? What if the All-Star Race could be in Lambeau Field? Who knows what it would look like? I don't know. I don't know, man. I like the tracks to have some history. Well, we're going back to Wilkesboro. You're getting some of them.

I don't want a kiosk of a racetrack. That's well-ploid. That's pretty funny. I like that. I'm going to steal that line at some point. All right, I'm going to take that one. And we are live down. All right, it's finally time for our favorite part of the show.

Ask Junior is back, and it's brought to you by Exfinity, 10G Network. work. Let's look at the questions that you guys have sent in. Andrew, take it away. Yeah, this first one is from the YouTube chat. They were already chiming in 30 minutes before we went live. So I'd love to see it. This is from John Adams. Do you miss when you could dial up other drivers during the race, during a super speedway especially? I definitely did not get everything out of that. Like, I probably would have abused it, you know, keyed up the mic and been like, hey, what's you doing? What's you thinking about?

What's going on? What's you doing after the race? That was a dumb move. Hey, man. You know, I would probably not use it as intended. And then probably would have been subsequently removed from everybody else's radios so that I couldn't chat. I couldn't reach out to them. I would have probably been, my intent would have been to annoy the hell out of everybody.

Just for a laugh. And so that's probably good. that that didn't continue. Yeah, you think that it's not around today? It's probably a good thing. This second one is from Max Kirtok, and we saw it on your social media this weekend. What did you think about the new driver's eye camera

that Fox debuted this weekend? I thought it was great. You know, I don't love the blurring out the dash. I understand why they want to do it. I don't know what, I really don't know what the information is that they don't want us to see. Maybe there's something they've, you know, I don't know what could be on that screen,

and I'm sure it's pretty simple and pretty straightforward. And if somebody was sitting here right now at the table to tell us, we'd probably go, well, okay, yeah, that makes sense. We don't need to see that. Or I understand why you'd want to hide that from us. But there is a, you know, there's a demand for really authentic perspectives in terms of where the cameras are. And there are some that I've loved.

There are some that I hate. You remember the gyro cam? We'd go into the corner. at Talladega or Daytona and they would take the camera and turn it and it really wasn't a true gyro cam. It was just a guy with a joystick twisting the angle of the camera and you know it wasn't a self-leveling camera right and so it was bull's shit and so

and then you know the the there's other camera angles that are just pointless to me the drone yeah zooming around I mean what the hell is that Yeah. No, you know, as many times as we felt like we were going to commercial break, and we come back and we're droning around and not really looking at what's going on. You know, I want to see the freaking race up front. I want to see the cars that are trying to battle for the lead.

We're missing shit. Yeah, if you look at the lake half the time. I love a roof cam. I love a fixed roof cam that doesn't turn, that doesn't move. The reason why is because when that roof cam is locked down and not moving, not panning to look at the car, side or whatever, I can tell when that car is tight or loose. I can tell when the car has a moment. And that driver's eye camera is just really cool to be able to, it's really kind of what

it looks like. It is a great perspective. And I feel like it would be cool if we could kind of get down lower and point it up. I kind of feel like we're looking down into the steering wheel a little bit. They'll work on that. Positioning, I assume, to get us a better shot out of the front of the car. But it's cool technology. It was really cool when, I think, with Briscoe, he flipped his visor. And you could see the dark to, like, what he was seeing. I thought that was really cool.

And Clint pointed that out, man. The harmonics in the car sometimes will make your nose itch or whatever. Or you're just wiping sweat to keep it from running. A lot of times sweat runs down into your brow. If you don't wipe it, it's going in your eye. It's going in your eye, and that's, you know, so I don't know how many times you lift your visor to do something like that. But, you know, it's a great opportunity to see what the drivers are messing with, what they're looking at. You know, you can kind of see them turning and looking their head toward a mirror or whatever, right?

And, yeah, so that's great. I like it. I think, you know, sometimes less is better. In this case, it's a good deal. This next question is coming from, it's probably the most. asked question I've seen on social media the last couple of weeks, and it's about the North Wilkesboro All-Star race. People want to know if you've considered running in that event. No, no, no. I don't know that I've had an invite to do it. I'm not going to run in it. I am more, you know,

I'm going to run our late-mile stock car on Wednesday. The Cars Tour race will be there on Wednesday. There's a super late model race on Tuesday, I believe, a pro late model and a Cars Tour, a Car's Tour Pro and a cars tour late model stock race on Wednesday, so two races that day. The trucks, I mean, I would be interested. You know what? I'll tell you this. If the trucks didn't have stages, I would run that race. I'd already ran at Martinsville if the trucks didn't have stages.

But the stages at Martinsville in a truck race, was it, 40 laps? They beat the shit out of each other. They run over each other and dump each other in every corner. And the stages confined them to being all over the top of each other. You can't get away from each other. the races and the stages and all that stuff. So, but yeah, I probably would run the truck race if I, you know, knew I was going to get a good long run, wear some tires out, sliding around,

chance to really put some distance on some people or whatever, right? So that kind of is a turnoff for me is the stages that short races that are already short, the trucks, the Xfinity, and stages at short tracks. It just, to me, none of that works. And we're already starting to see a little bit of those changes in terms of not throwing a yellow the way, I think it's the road courses, right? I love it. Would you like to see that everywhere?

Well, hopefully we're trending in that direction. Yeah. I think that it's, I think, I don't know about everywhere. I think at some of the longer races, the stages don't bother me as much. For, you know, some of the bigger 500-mile events, I'm kind of okay with the stages. They don't bother me. I don't mind them. But they bothered the hell out of me at the short races.

A truck race at a short track doesn't need stages. You know, it just doesn't. And for me, it's unnecessary sort of pausing the action of already a very brief event. This next one, we kind of touched on the Daytona 500 a little bit in dirty air. What did you think of Jimmy Johnson and Travis Pistrana on Sunday? Both of them ran in the top 10. I will be honest with you, man. Jimmy surprised me. And I guess he shouldn't. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. But, you know, listening, I was listening to LaTart, Dirty Mo Doe. And he was like, you know, I don't, I think that the numbers for Jimmy and the odds for

Jimmy and the odds makers are going to favor him. And I think this will be a difficult, you know, the unfamiliar race car and how the draft works with this car is a little bit different. I thought he would struggle. He didn't. He was very patient. Every time anybody gave him an opportunity to take position. he took him. And methodically, in pure Jimmy style, man, was moving his way into the top

10. He was kind of always sort of lurking off to the side of the edge of the photo, right? And always sort of on the edge of the camera shot in the, you know, sixth, eighth, tenth position and in position for a great run. So good job of Jimmy. And now I'm, you know, even more, I think that has me even more excited about the next race he'll run. It'll be a completely different track, completely different experience, completely different techniques and so forth. And I think he'll even maybe have a better opportunity to shine at some of those races. But yeah, he picked that, he picked up the racing at Daytona in this next-gen car really quickly. I heard he was talking about like practicing like simulator laps and he didn't know there was a fifth

gear because of the next-gen car. And so he ran a whole sim lap in fourth gear. I thought it was funny. But yeah, he adjusted really quick. It seemed like. Some drivers had it sixth gear. Did you see that on TV? Yeah, yeah, I was wondering about that.

Really? That's what they say. They call finding another gear. He found it. Wow. Yeah, quite literally did. This next one is from Mike Jackson. Have you ever been asked to do SNL?

Would that be something you'd like to do? No. That time has came and went, man. I think if I could have done it, it would have been, you know, 04, 05, 06. I might have gotten asked to do it and I might have turned it down because I was too scared to do it. Yeah, you wouldn't like to do it? That might have happened.

Oh, wait. Oh, that might have happened. Yeah, really? That might have happened. What about now if you were asked to do it? Would you do it? No way. No way.

You know, I don't know if this will make sense, and I might sound like a complete asshole, but randomly, right? Say, let's go back to 2004, okay? 2005 or something like that. Peak of our popularity or so, you know, we're racing well, bud deals, kicking tail, and everything's good. we'd get a call, hey, they want, you know, we're going out to Fontana. They want you to do Letterman or Leno or whatever, right?

Letterman's New York, but they want you to do a late-night show. And I'm like, well, I ain't done anything. I haven't won a race. In my mind, like, you did those things when you won the Daytona 500 or when you won a championship or when you had just had this incredible thing happen, wrote a book, whatever, right? You don't just go for the sake of going. I now know when I watch these shows like yeah they have people just pop on all the time

you know the guests are coming in and out and Jeff Gordon on late night the other other week but a lot of those people are there to promote a new movie a new thing right and so in my mind it's like man if I had if I didn't feel worthy I didn't want to do it because I would go in there and feel like I didn't deserve to be there didn't belong there

and now that's definitely probably not how I felt about the Saturday Night Live invite. If there, if, honestly, I don't really remember whether we got one or not, but it feels like we might have gotten one years ago. It was almost 20 years ago. And I would absolutely have turned it down out of pure fear of doing it, right? And then Jeff does it and I'm thinking, damn, you know, that's one thing that Jeff had the balls to do that I probably didn't have the balls to do it.

And so, you know, kudos to him. And he did a great job, right? Yeah, he got out of there in one piece. But I was terrified. I'm going to tell you, man, I've never been more scared in my life. I got asked to introduce Lincoln Park at the MTV Music Awards. And I was kicking and screaming, like heels in the dirt, like getting shoved toward the door to go in there. I'm like, no!

And my PR guy, Jade, he's like, you got to do this. This is going to be so good for you. You know, the bud people are behind this. you have to do it. Like you've got to go do this. This is going to be important. Of course, after the fact, when you're done, you're like, that was awesome. Yeah.

Thank you. I'm so glad I did this. Thanks for making me do this. You're thrilled. But man, going into it, you're terrified of it. You're like, I don't have to do this. I don't need this. I don't want this in my life.

Like, I don't want to be up here. And you, they turned. I was in this little tube and they were going to spin me around. And then that would be facing the audience, right? And they spend me, actually, I walked up there and backstage with Beyonce and, yeah, I mean, wait, this was 0-1 or something, but it was a long time ago, but, man, we're backstage. Luckily, there's all these stars around. And this, one of the crew, one of the guys that's like pulling the curtain or whatever, right, there's all these stars around and the crew, and the crew guy walks up to me and he's got a die-cast. and I was like, I'm all these people here.

Like, they're big megastars. And you're like, hey, man, can I, I can't get yours. That, right before I was getting ready to go on stage, and that really helped. That's good. That kind of pumped my ego a little bit to make you feel like, okay. But man, when I spun around and saw all those musicians and stars staring back at me, I was like, where, how did I get here? Yeah, it's like, wow.

What am I doing here? It's terrifying. Isn't it funny how, like, those moments, Like how would like the fear of that compare to anything racing? Nothing. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Yeah.

Racing is not scary until, you know, you're flying out of control. I guess the nerves then. Not it. I will say that's a, yeah, it's comparable to probably how you feel like right before you go qualify. Right. Qualifying used to be pretty scary because it was like, you know, you were going to go, all right, man, we're going right to the edge. Yeah. In the race, you don't go right to the edge till certain moments.

And you have all day to understand just how close you can get to that edge. And qualifying, you've got to go to the edge right away. And you don't know, you might go too far. You might slip off the edge. But it has to happen. You have to go to the edge right away. You don't get to work up to it. Like, you don't have 400 miles or 500 miles to find the edge.

And so qualifying for me, I was always more nervous for qualifying than the race itself. I find that interesting. That's a good place to end this week. Okay, all right, great questions. Thankful for Xfinity. 10G network. 10G. They skipped a bunch.

I know. They went right to 10. Doubled it. Check it out. It's fastest internet. I mean, probably the fastest ever. Even faster speeds rolling out every day. It's the next generation of the high-speed network from Xfinity.

All right, everybody, we are going to wrap this episode up. Steve, thanks for coming in and helping us out while our buddy Mike Davis is on the man. Appreciate your insight, as always, and everything else you do for NASCAR, you are a busy man. We got you working every week with your Dirty Mo Doe podcast. How's that going? Oh, it's a blast. It's a great time to try to introduce the NASCAR fan to gambling and try to introduce the gamblers that are out there to NASCAR, mixing two groups of people. It's so much fun each week to try to guess what we're going to see on a Sunday. Yeah, it's pretty fascinating. Great listen. If you're interested in that sort of thing, I think it actually is a great listen, even if you're not

gambling because it's your handicap in the field. You're basically just telling us who's the favorite, who do you don't think is going to do really well in a more entertaining way than just giving me, hey man, I think this guy's going to win. Right, right. Well, listen, you know, our man Chopper who's on there, he's financially invested. So if you want to listen, you should listen because he didn't have the best Daytona 500. No.

And we're going to put him on the carpet and find out what went wrong. Can't wait to listen to it every Thursday, dirty mowedoe. we'll see you tomorrow for our next installment of the Dell Jr. download. My guest is Jeffrey Earnhardt. My sister Kelly's going to come in and help me with that interview. Looking forward to that conversation. We'll see you then. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.